Google was once the company whose motto was “don’t be evil.” Well, those days are over.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Silicon Valley-based company was a monopolist that was using its market advantage to suppress competition in the search engine market.
In another case, the federal government and eight states, including California, allege that Google has “corrupted lawful competition” in the technology underlying online advertising.
Local news organizations are victims of these monopolistic practices. Google not only limits our ability to generate advertising revenue, but also uses our news content to drive web traffic to its search page.
Essentially, they put our journalists’ work on their website and sell advertising on it. And pocket the profits. Google made more than $300 billion last year, most of it from advertising it sells on content it neither created nor paid for.
At the same time, local journalism is fighting for survival. California alone has lost over 100 newspapers in the last decade, cutting off a flow of information that is crucial to the survival of local democracy.
Fortunately, state lawmakers are trying to at least partially correct this imbalance.
Two bills are being considered in the House this month. The most promising, AB 886, by Representative Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would require online platforms like Google and Facebook to share the revenue they earn from articles published by local news organizations.
The bill would require journalism organizations to spend at least 70 percent of California Journalism Preservation Act funds on journalists and support staff. In other words, Google would have to stop undermining local journalism and start supporting it financially.
The idea is not new. Similar laws have already been passed in Canada and Australia, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in newsrooms.
Of course, the devil is in the details, and the biggest detail is how much Google would have to charge in compensation to news organizations for the privilege of using their content. The amount is currently being negotiated between lawmakers and Google. The big question is whether the company will strike a deal, as it has in other countries, or take the risk and go to arbitration.
Now in its second year in the Legislature, Wicks’ bill passed the Assembly but must still pass the Senate’s key budget committee this week. It must pass the full Senate and return to the Assembly for approval of amendments before the end of the month.
Another bill, SB 1327, by Senator Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), tackles the same problem in a different way. It proposes taxing big tech companies on the user data they collect for advertising purposes and then using the tax revenue to support news publications.
It’s clear that change is needed. Google abandoned its motto of altruism long ago. Only action by lawmakers can curb this behavior. We’re in the final month of the legislative session. Now is the time to do it.
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